GRAHAM — Neighbors and Mount Hermon community members continue to voice their opposition to Benevolence Farm, a transitional living site for women recently released from prison.

More than 40 people attended a community-organized meeting Monday night at the Mount Hermon Community Center and peppered Benevolence Farm Executive Director Tanya Jisa with questions and concerns about the farm’s operations.

“How, exactly, is it going to positively impact the community?” said Debbie Newell, who helped organize the meeting. “We feel like we can’t be safe in our community.”

BENEVOLENCE FARM recently purchased a three-bedroom house at 4265 Thompson Mill Road, after 11 acres of nearby land was donated to the organization. The home will originally house four women recently released from prison who are interested in rehabilitating their lives, Jisa said. The organization’s leaders intend to expand the facility to house no more than 12 women. While on the property, they will spend 25 hours a week out in the field growing produce and 15 hours learning job or educational skills. The farm’s leaders are currently holding work days once a month to prepare the property for the women, who may begin arriving by early next year.

With more than 2,600 women exiting prisons in North Carolina, including 48 Alamance County residents, there is a need for this type of service because, Jisa said, if these recent inmates are not helped, more than two-thirds are rearrested. The transitional living, Jisa said, would offer “stable housing and gainful employment” while teaching them other educational and job skills.

She stressed that there was no obligation or requirement for the farm to hold community meetings, but the leaders wanted to be transparent and get the community’s input.

SEVERAL COMMUNITY members felt they were left out of the planning process, that the farm was a “done deal,” and worried about how the farm would affect their safety and their property values.

Gesturing toward the ball field outside of the community center, Newell asked how parents and grandparents could feel their children and grandchildren are safe when convicted criminals are within walking distance of their homes and their community.

“We are giving up a lot so you can have what you want,” Newell said. “… We want a guarantee that women who were violent or harmed children will not be allowed on the property. We don’t think this is too much to ask if you want our support.”

Jisa said this contradicts the farm’s mission and they do not intend to screen the women based on their criminal past. Instead, she said, they will be looking for women they feel will be successful and who want to change their lives for the better.

“They are not dumb women,” Jisa said. “They will want to prove to you they are good community members. Let them prove it to you. They are going to be wonderful neighbors.”

Page 2 of 2 - A handful of neighbors walked out of the meeting, some saying they weren’t going to change the minds of the farm’s leadership or “they were wasting their breath.”

“I personally don’t think there should be second chances for hurting a child or killing someone,” Newell said. “Jesus can forgive them, they can get help. But I don’t have to allow them access to my family. Jesus said for us to protect our families, also.”

When community members were asked what should be done with women who are returning from prison, at least one woman said she didn’t care where they went as long as they weren’t in her community.

ONE POINT OF contention was a set of postcards that Jisa said the organization sent to residents about an earlier meeting that many residents did not receive. No one at Monday’s meeting said postcards were received, and Newell said she saw the postcard in her church’s mailbox. Jisa apologized and agreed with community members that it was a mistake that they were not reached earlier during the process.

“I have a favor for the future,” said Donna Ingle, one neighbor of the property. “If this is a success and you go to another community and set up, please don’t make the same mistakes. … That is the root of it. It was shot to us, and we had no time to absorb it and get used to it. There are a lot of unknowns, and had we been a part of this in the beginning, we might (have the answers).”